Wednesday, April 19, 2017

When I was attending Creativation (fka CHA) this year, I met up with my friend Cat Kerr at the Alumilite (Amazing Casting Products) booth. I was floored by the complexity of products she was making, from assemblage to embellishments for artwork to jewelry. She rocked my world with her artistry of the mysterious(at least to me) art of making molds and casting resin pieces. The idea of a Blog Hop was born.

In case you don't understand how a Blog Hop work, this is what happened. The lovely people at Alumilite sent my StencilGirl peeps some product and us, here at StencilGirl, sent their peeps some stencils.

Playtime ensued. At my house, this always includes a cat. Ahem.
But I digress, let me show you what I received. Keep in mind I had absolutely zero ideas what to do with these products.

Seriously. I learned by reading the box. First you mix up the putty and make a mold. Then you pour resin into the mold to make your object. It is really quite simple, I am sure a chemist could explain why this works, hahaha.

Naturally, I was interested to know if I could use stencils to make 3-dimensional objects. And voila! Yes, it can be done. The first picture below shows a Seth Apter stencil and the second shows a Rae Missigman feather mask. When you use a stencil or a mask, the result will be flat. In order to transform this into a mold (that will hold resin), you need to make a little wall about your imprint. The second picture shows the 'wall' which was made by rolling the putty into a little snake and then attaching it - it basically attached itself on contact, so this is super easy.

But I couldn't stop at stencils because I also wanted to make a mold of something else, something fun! I searched and searched for something cute, buttons, acorns, shells, hmmmmm, such potential. I settled on a tiny tube of paint that met my requirements and oooh la, who knew how much I would love making wee resin paint tubes.
Here is an images of my final products prior to painting and after painting.

Not sure what I am going to do with them as of yet. I am amazed they are quite strong and I am thinking a closure on the front of a journal for one of the feathers, wouldn't that be cool!

After playing for several days, here are my tips:

Don’t be stingy with the product. I had a couple molds that were too thin just because I was trying to ‘save’ product. You will get much better results with a beefy mold that will stand up to multiple uses.

If you are using a stencil or a mask, pick an isolated image rather than one where the image is part of an intricate pattern.

When using a stencil, first, use a brayer over the stencil (on the mold putty) and then use a thin palette knife to press the stencil even deeper.

After making your resin piece, you are easily able to trim off ugly edges. I found you could also trim the resin the next day too. I imagine you could also poke holes in it (to make jewelry).

To add color, I put the Alumidust in the mold prior to pouring the resin. Gorgeous!

I forgot to do this a couple of times and my resin piece dried to solid white. No worries though because I was able to add color with Pitt pens, Acrylic paint (craft and Golden), Sharpie marker and Stayzon ink. Seems like nearly anything might work.

All in all, I had a terrific time and know that there is more mold making in my future. Can you say paint tube earrings?????

Here is a list of the participants in our Hop and the dates you may read their posts:April 19

Monday, April 10, 2017

Have you seen my friend Jodi Ohl's book? Here's a picture of the cover, so beautiful; I am in the book, on page 138 to be precise; it was so sweet of Jodi to include me!

Abstracts in Acrylic & Ink by Jodi Ohl

If you are interested in painting abstracts, there is a lot to love about this book. As you all know, I've painted my fair share of abstracts and am quite impressed with Jodi's great way of organizing information in an accessible manner. She includes a ton of fun techniques with different substrates (Yupo! Claybord!) and ways to create texture (alcohol! Crackle medium!). If you aren't inspired by all the goodness in this book, well, your heart must simply be dead to abstracts. LOL

Seriously though.....

Stencils and scribbles and doodles and painted papers, you know how much I love all these things, I feel like Jodi crawled into my head and put together a book talking about all my favorite stuff.

Bottom line: if you want to explore Mixed Media abstract painting, this is the book for you!

And, guess what.....I just happen to have a copy to give away.

Leave me a comment below as to why you are playful enough to paint abstracts! Because painting abstracts takes a leap of faith and playfulness is definitely encouraged.

I will select a winner on April 17th.

Be sure and leave me your email in the comments. Email at blank dot com.

Wednesday, April 05, 2017

This month StencilGirl Products is collaborating with Canvas Corp Brands to show you unique ways to use StencilGirl stencils with a variety of Canvas Corp Brands surfaces and Tattered Angels Paint Kits! Be sure to check out the details at the end of this post on how you can win a wonderful prize package worth over $50 in goodies from StencilGirl Products and Canvas Corp Brands! Canvas Corp is practically a neighbor of StencilGirl! I mean, shoot, they live right down the road from us in Arkansas (we are in Missouri). They manufacture under the names Canvas Home Basics, Tattered Angels and 7gypsies.
Back in the day, before I spent the bulk of my time running SGP, I used 7gypsies materials in my collage work All.The.Time. There are certain discontinued 7gypsies tissue papers with which I am obsessed and I may be hoarding them. Just sayin'

Imagine my delight when I was allowed to pick some products to try! I wanted to play with the Tattered Angels brand, specifically the Naturally Aged Kits - I chose Tarnished Silver.

This stuff is crazy! I mean seriously crazy. You can get such interesting effects and you can absolutely depend on it. I have tried this sort of thing in the past and could never get it to look right, but trust me when I say these are completely awesome.
I went a wee bit wild I shall say, on tags, scrap paper, in my journal. My oh my.

The thing is, the package insert is excellent, so incredibly specific with a step by step description of how to get the desired effect. It would be impossible to mess it up and trust me, I am the Queen of messing stuff up. I did spill one of the bottles, but, I think I was overexcited.

Just as an fyi, these Kits will work on matte or glossy paper; canvas; corrugate (must try this next!); handmade papers; cork; other natural materials. And I must say, I need to get my hands on some more of these as there are other Kits I am dying to try - the Peeled Paint Kit or the Age Terracotta or the.....well, you get the idea, they are all pretty special.

leave a comment here on any or all of the Matchup Posts during the month of April with StencilGirl Products and CCB.You can leave one on each post for more chances to win. Don’t forget to include the hashtag #SGPCCBmatchup so we can find you!!!

and/or leave a comment on any of the CCB Instagram posts or StencilGirl Products Instagram posts where you see any of the projects from the CCB team or the SGP team.Don’t forget to include #SGPCCBmatchup so we can find you!!!

You can follow along by searching #SGPCCBmatchup. If you love what you see and would like to join the Facebook group CCB Collective – ask to join today.